Authoring Software

[ASB]

All you guys who have used the many DVD Authoring packages out there, could you let me know what you think would fit my requirements.

The task.
I have about 100 home video tapes that are in PAL! (I moved to the US from the UK a couple of years ago). I want to transfer them all to DVD in NTSC.

The plan.
To capture via firewire, convert to MPEG2 NTSC with Procoder, Author then burn.
If anyone has a better solution then Procoder for this stage of the operation please let me know. I looked at NeoDVD but I do not think the quality will be good enough?? Someone did a test with V3 for me, is V4 output better? I plan to burn with the Authoring Software or Nero.

Authoring.
I want something that will let me;

• use my MPEG2 files without re_encoding.
  Put two buttons on the first screen "Play" and "Chapters". (Chapters will go to the chapter menu.
  Add chapters to my film using scene detection.
  add a MP3 bacground to the menus.
  Add a MP3 backgroung to the film (should I do this in a editing package before I encode??).
  Burn at 4x.

I think thats it. Let me know what you think?
Thanks

[Amish Electrician]

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=149219
Read that you can do all those things with that
And it will do the mp3 stuff with a upgrade i just convert to wav then put the background sound. Im, assuming you want background sound only in the menus not in the vid.

[ASB]

I would like mixed backgroud music in the vid so I can hear the original soundtrack as well as the music.
Thanks for the feedback I will check out the link.

[ASB]

Please, would anyone with experience of a particular package let me know which packages will do what I want?
In particular – not re-encoding the file and chapters by scene scanning?

Many Thanks

[spidey]

I would throw my vote in for SpruceUp's DVD Maestro or Sonic's DVD Producer. I use Producer, as it is simply a seemingly newer app based on maestro, but with a newer gui, and the ability to graphically add and develop the projects as you author as well. Plus my Pioneer player didn't like the Maestro authored a/v TS dir's......

They both will give you a new title set for each movie and aloow you to scan the streams to set chapter points. Any of the "lower" Sonic programs are great, but they all author every clip into the SAME vts......

If you are using ALL mpeg2 m2v's or ALL mpeg1 m1v's for your project, I'd recommend DVDit. It is an awesome, quick and easy authoring app, but since they compile to the same VTS, you must be using ALL the SAME types of SOURCE streams.....

see sonic.com, as well as the guides linked off of this site under AUTHOR (again, look left)

As far as your PAL -> NTSC conversion, You must re-encode the SVCD m2v vid streams. I'd say for speed use Avisytnh through CCE.

Below is a copy of some notes from DJRUmpy. He had sent them to me detailing the process.

I'll add some supplementary notes as well.


Avisynth through CCE - PAL -> NTSC

First view guides under convert (look left) as to frameserving, so you are familiar with it.

The below script tells AVISynth to stretch or shrink the video (PAL -> NTSC), until it matches the specified frame rate (in this case, 23.976 fps). In the case of a PAL source, the output file is slowed down from 25 fps to 23.976 fps. All PAL versions of NTSC video is created using the reverse method. The conversion process is lossless as far as the video is concerned. Since the movie is stretched/shrunk, and no frames are dropped, or added, then no quality is lost.

It's completely up to you as to what to do with the audio. (DO IT SEPERATE) The stretching process leaves you with a slowed down audio, process the mp2 file then in BeSweet and convert the framrate's down from 25 fps to 23.76 fps (ntsc film).

You'd do the mp2 audio externally in BeSweet, since any DVD Autoring tool, will usually want elementary streams anyway......Leave the audio option unchecked in CCE. Your script would look like this:

AVISource("c:\myvideofolder\myvideo.avi")
ConvertToYUY2()
AssumeFPS(23.976,False)
BicubicResize(720,480)

If your source is a DVD2AVI (aka a frameserved m2v stream from one of your Mpeg2 files) project file (d2v), again, see https://www.videohelp.com/svcddvdr.htm if you are usure what's going on, then it would look like this:

LoadPlugin("mpeg2dec.dll")
Mpeg2Source("c:\myvideofolder\myvideo.d2v")
ConvertToYUY2()
AssumeFPS(23.976,False)
# Since you've loaded the mpeg2dec.dll file, you can use
# the temporal smoother like this next line
TemporalSmoother(2,3)
# Note: you can just load the DLL to use the smoother. It's not necessary
# to load a D2V file, just to use the DLL
BicubicResize(720,480)

Now once you're done with this all, you will use PULLDOWN and it's GUI to convert the ntsc film 23.76 fps M2v elem stream to 29.97 fps NTSC so your authoring program will take it.

and you'd have a new ac3 assumably with the corrected framerate from BeSweet.

This should give you all you need.

A very special thanks to DJRumpy

[ASB]

Spidey
Thanks for such a detailed reply. I also have a pionner so maybe Maestro is not the one. Will try DVDit, many thanks.

I have not been able to get to grips with Avisynth as yet. However this does look complicated. With canopus procoder you can open a PAL DV source and then save a NTSC MPEG2 DVD compliant Target, then hit convert and it does it all. Well that what it says, I have yet to import it into an Authoring package. With my tests the output file plays ok in WMP with sound in sync so I hope this will work for me.

Any reason you see it will not? Do authoring packages, do they need seperate video and audio streams or is a system stream ok?